Sociology and History

Sociology and history may overlap in one area, but diverge widely in another. First we would discuss the similarities or the interdependence between the two disciplines .What is History? It is a record of events that is, it gives an account of happenings .it also speaks about the causes and consequences of event s, so in other words ,history is a record of life of societies, the ideas which have determined their actions and the mutual condition which hindered development .Sociology is concerned with the study of the historical development of society. It studies the various stages, modes of living, customs, manners their impression in the form of social institution. Sociology is thus dependent on history for its material .On the other hand history supplies facts which are interpreted and coordinated by sociologist. Similarly sociology gives a social background to the study of history. If history has to be useful to study the present and to serve as a guide for the future ,sociological interrelation of facts is absolutely essential and it is because of this then mutual dependency between sociology and history .History is past and sociology is present history. Also history uses sociology .The historian take his clues from important problems, as well as many of his concept and general ideas which he draws increasing from sociology. Therefore it is seen much contemporary historiography and sociology seen to have the same basic framework to references ,to type of society. At the present time there is evident of cooperation and even trespassing into each other territory by sociologist and social historians for e.g. in England much recent work indicates the convergence of sociology and social and economic history ,i.e. historians account of the social structure of nineteenth century towns, or the characteristics of medieval peasantry etc and the sociologist studies of the social history of a variety of profession. Hence in what ways do the two present society differs. Firstly, sociology studies the present society while history is the study of the phenomenon taking place in this process. Secondly there is much in history that has no direct relation to sociology while there is much of sociology which is not of much significance to history. As the primary interest of the historian in to narrate the historical event in the chronological order. Thirdly according to ------ ,history is concrete whereas sociology is an abstract science of human experience and human nature. Fourthly, history deals with events in all the aspects while sociology would study them from the view point of social relationships involved .Fifthly, the historians describes unique events, while the sociologist produces generalization ,that in which the sociologists usually begin with a generalization .Sixthly, the historian is concerned with the interplay between personality and massive social forces and that the sociologists largely concerned with their local force themselves. Seventhly history is made up of -----------sociology is not. Eight ,historians are content to establish how things actually happened on the other hand sociologist are likely to seek for the interrelation ,between events and to propose casual sequences .Ninth, history has been written as the history of kings and wars. The history of less glamorous or exciting events, the change is through time in institutional forms such as landowning or in social relation such as those of men and women in the family have less interested historians whereas such relationships lie at the center of the sociologist concern. Lastly, social functions are subjected to the action of historical contingencies on the other hand the contingencies have to take into account the social laws which limit their scope.

Despite these differences we can conclude that there are important bases for the concordance of history and sociology .Some historians like G.G. Coulton and Jacob Burckhardt have written social history which deals with human relations, social patterns, mores and customs. Some of the most outstanding sociological analysis is like work of Max Weber which has been applied to historical problem. Lastly ,one exerts himself by concentrated work of compassion to detach specific necessities, the other citizen the ----- furnished by sociology to better understand and classify the role of social elements in history. Thus it is of the greatest importance for the development of the social sciences that the two subjects should be closely related and should borrow extensively from each other.